Learning a trade is wonderful and more should probably go that route, but I believe there remains a place for a liberal arts education. So I say teach them not what to think, but how to think.
Studying liberal arts and learning a trade are BOTH worthy endeavors. What is a waste of time and money is the hybrid: majoring in, say, “Criminal Justice”.
Liberal arts is the only education, all the rest is job training. Unfortunately we are turning out college graduates with a major in history who can’t name the right decade for the start of the American civil war, have never heard of the Magna Charta or the battle of Hastings and have a hard time naming the country we revolted against to create the USA. They think “seven hundred percent less” makes as much sense as “seven hundred percent more” and they don’t know to from two or too. They can use there, their and they’re all in one long sentence and use each one incorrectly. Often they can listen to a political speech filled with nothing but pure nonsense and call it great oratory. There is very little educating going on but there are huge numbers of degrees being handed out. Some of those degrees cost a lot more than my father earned in his entire working lifetime and produce a graduate with less real education than he had as an eighth grade dropout. If we have as I fear a real SHTF situation about to erupt most of them will be about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. I am trying to make friends with some old rednecks who still know how to do something worthwhile like catching a catfish.